Rhythm

Definition: To emphasise a certain word or phrase throughout the poem, creating a pattern.

Example:
I hear the sound I love, the song of the human voice,
I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused, or following,
Sounds of the city and sounds out of the city, sounds of the day and night,
Talkative young ones to those that like them, the loud laugh of work-people at their meals...

Significance: Poets use rhythm in their poems to get the meaning or attitude across more effectively.

 ha rhythm in poetry :D

Rhyme

Definition: Multiple words with the same sounding ending, usually located at the end of sentences. The rhyming words typically consist of the same number of syllables.

Example: Acceptance of darkness
The heart of the sun
The battle is over
The people have won.

Aether of sunlight
Dust of the stars
Eyes against nothing
Know nothing is far.

Blue opalescence
That holds in the night
Vanish forever
In infinite light.

Eyes of the heavens
Hand of the sun
The old life is over
A new has begun.
Significance: Poets pair words that rhyme in order to make the poem flow and sound better. I like them, they really test your vocabulary.

Speaker

Definition: The person speaking in the poem, not the person reading the poem.

Example: Still an irritating wind;
Vestiges of stubborn grey –
Jibing us of recent winter blight.

It’s coming though – like perky breasts
Pushing through a blouse –
Teasing, pleasing in it’s tantalising play:

Warmth of youth in April sun –
Simmering off depression,
Brains retuned; remapped for fun.

April is a portal –
Smoothly transitions
Delicate dispositions – suchlike mine,

Easing hunched bodies into
Summery smiles.

I just picked a ramdom poem.

Significance: The speaker of the poem is not always the poet. oh god, what's the significance?! : /

Metaphor

Definition: To compare two or more objects without the use of like or as.

Example: Is your happiness a leaking tap
Are you letting joy drip away
For the want of a spot of maintenance
'Tis a high price to pay

Significance: Metaphors help readers understand the poem better using comparison, and is more subtle than similes.

Onomatopoeia

Definition: a word or phrase that, when pronounced, sounds like the actual thing it's describing.

Example:
Slam! Slam!
Go the car doors.
Jangle! Jangle!
Go the house keys.
Jiggle! Jiggle!
Go the keys in the door.
Squeak!
Goes the front door!
Thump! Thump!
That is me running down the stairs.
Guess what?
Mom and Dad are home!!
Significance: Onomatopoeias help the readers to imagine the scene using their auditory senses.

Personification

Definition: To write about a non human thing as if it were human.

Example:
The teapot sang as the water boiled
The ice cubes cackled in their glass
the teacups chattered to one another.
While the chairs were passing gas
The gravy gurgled merrily
As the oil danced in a pan.
Oh my dinnertime chorus
What a lovely, lovely clan!

Significance: Personifications help further decribe objects, at times even helping the reader relate to the object better.

Imagery

Definition: Something that is written in a way that allows readers to imagine what is happening via their senses.

Example:
The chilly weather settles into your bones.
Those once green leaves turn
Red, yellow, orange, and brown.
CRRNCH! go the leaves,,
Beneath  your feet.
The birds fly in a victory “V” formation,
To where the sun rules the skies.
The days of winter are lurking around
Waiting to be free falling.
Significance: Imagery allows readers to better imagine the scene described.

Simile

Definition: To compare two or more things using like or as

Example:

“Friends are like chocolate cake

You can never have too many.

Chocolate cake is like heaven -

Always amazing you with each taste or feeling.

Chocolate cake is like life with so many different pieces.

Chocolate cake is like happiness, you can never get enough of it.”

Significance: Similes help the reader understand the poem better.

Repetition

Definition: To do the same thing over and over again, in this case to write the same line multiple times.

Example:
Fish

Inside the ocean
I see fish.
Inside the waves
I hear a splash.
Inside the water
I felt a fish.
It seems so big,
as big as a whale.
It has to be,
But then I see,
It's a tuna fish.

Significance: Repetition in poetry can be used to emphasise a moral or message. It can also be part of the poem style.

 

Tone

Definition: The way something is said, the pitch in which something is said, the attitude of a poem.

Example:

From one thousand mountains the birds' flights are gone;

From ten thousand byways the human track has vanished.

In a single boat, an aged man, straw cloak and hat,

Fishes alone; snow falls, cold in the river

Significance: Tone is important in poetry because it dictates the way people interpret the poem. Changing the poem's tone can completely change it's meaning or feel.

Interpretation

Definition: The way someone perceives something.

Example:

A slumber did my spirit seal,
            I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
            The touch of earthly years.
No motion has she now, no force;
            She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
            With rocks, and stones, and trees.

Significance: One of the great things about poems is that they can be interpreted in different ways, it's not the same experience for everyone.



                            

Symbols

Definition: Something or someone that represents an idea that is more than the symbol itself.

Example: I'd close my eyes and start to see,
Which was not yet in front of me.
Ill start to type, form a rhyme.
Then continue with my pouting.
These beats I form start to mourn


And show a cried out ego
Hear my tempo slow to time
Then ill march on forward proudly
You've seen my tears, you've heard me cry
But now I'm done with trying


Importance: Symbolism is important to poetry because it can supplement the poem's feeling or mood without directly stating it. It can make the poem more sophisticated.

Couplets

Definition: A group of two sentences. Basically a stanza with only two lines.

Example: When Silly Sally irons her clothes
               They come out looking awful.
              
               She did not read the label
               and her iron was meant to waffle.

Importance: The importance of the couplet is exactly the same as that of the stanza's.

Stanzas

Definition: A group of sentences within a poem, like a paragraph.  

Example: ...I shrugged off the great weight that was my pack
               Just a few miles later I wanted it back
               Now without food and water
               The weather getting ever hotter

               Then my legs were blocks of lead
               The bare skin of my neck had long since turned red
               I didn't give up, I guess it's just how I was wired
               But I stumbled and fell, finding myself literally
               Dead Tired.

Importance: Stanzas are groups of sentences meant to be read together in a poem. The spaces in between   stanzas are meant to allow the reader to ponder the information they just read.